George and Ann RichardsCivil War Era Center

I studied nineteenth-century U.S. antebellum politics at the University of Houston with Dr. Eric Walther. My dissertation looked at the transition from the Second-Party system of Whigs and Democrats to the Third-Party system of Republicans and Democrats within the state of Indiana and sought to put its experience in the greater context of the nation and the looming Civil War. I also supervise history department interns at the Piper Aviation Museum in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where I serve on the Board of Directors. Lastly, I am the founder and director of the Joe Anthony Project, an oral history initiative that seeks to chronicle and document the diverse and influential, though largely unknown, hard rock and heavy metal scene of San Antonio, Texas.

Recent Publications

“‘Too Loud For the Rest of Radio’: Joe Anthony, Lou Roney, KMAC/KISS, and San Antonio as the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Capital of the World,” San Antonio Music History (Forthcoming, UTSA Press, 2022).

“The true and living principle of states’ rights and popular sovereignty:’ Indiana Republicans and Douglas Democrats Allied,” Indiana Magazine of History (December, 2015).

Awards and Service

• 2021, Historical and Archival Records Care Grant, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
• 2018, San Antonio Tricentennial Grant, San Antonio Tricentennial Commission, San Antonio, Texas
• 2014, John Brockway Huntington Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Research Library, San Marino, California
• 2009, Research Fellowship, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky
• 2008, Everette Helm Visiting Fellowship, Lilly Library, Indiana University